ELEANOR WATSON, AUTHORESS
Eleanor Watson leaned back in her Morris chair, her eyes fixed absently
on the opposite wall, her forehead knit in deep thought. "Somehow there
isn't enough of me to go round," she reflected. "I don't see why,--the
other girls, no quicker or brighter than I, seem to get on all right. I
wonder why I can't. I can't give up everything in the way of recreation."
It was easy enough for an outsider to analyze her difficulty. Never
before had Eleanor tried to "go round," as she put it. She had always
done what she pleased, and let alone the things that did not appeal to
her. Now she had suddenly assumed responsibilities. She really wanted to
do her college work, all of it, as it deserved to be done, and to do it
honestly, without resort to any of the various methods of deception that
she had employed almost unconsciously hitherto. She wanted to make life
pleasanter for Dora Carlson. She wanted to write the long, newsy letters
to Jim and to Judge Watson; letters that brought characteristic replies,
confidential from Jim, genially humorous from her father, but both
equally appreciative and as different as possible from their cold, formal
notes of the year before. On the other hand, she wanted, both for selfish
and unselfish reasons, to enter into the social life of the college. She
had not lost her worldly ambitions in one summer; and she had not gained,
at a bound, the concentration of mind that enabled other girls to get
through an amazing amount of work and fun with perfect ease. She knew
infinitely less of the value of time than Betty Wales; she had less sense
of proportion than Helen Adams; and she was intensely eager to win all
sorts of honors.
So it was natural that she should stare at the wall opposite for some
little time before she came to the conclusion that sitting empty-handed,
thinking about her troubles, while the morning took to itself wings, was
not the best way to mend matters. And when she did finally come back to
earth, it was only to give an angry little exclamation, pick up a
magazine from the table at her elbow, and go to reading it. At the end of
half an hour, however, she tossed it aside, and sitting resolutely down
at her desk, wrote diligently until lunch time.
"Have you done your theme, Eleanor?" asked Alice Waite, overtaking her on
the way down to the dining-room.
Eleanor nodded curtly. "Did it between twelve and one."
"Really?" Alice's brown eyes grew big with admiration. "Oh, dear, it
takes me days to do mine, and when they're done they're nothing, and
yours are just fine. I do think it's queer--"
"Nonsense," interrupted Eleanor crossly. "You don't know anything about
my themes. You never saw one."
"Oh, but Betty Wales says--" began Alice eagerly.
"Now what does Betty Wales really know about it either?" inquired Eleanor
a trifle more amiably.
"Why, I don't know," returned Alice helplessly, "but I'm sure she's
right. Is your theme a story?"
"Yes."
"Oh, and is it about a man and a girl? Betty says your man-and-girl
stories are great, specially the love parts. Now I could no more write
love-making--"
"Well, there's no love-making in this one," interrupted Eleanor crossly,
"and it's not great at all. It's so poor that I'm not even sure I shall
hand it in. So please don't say any more about it."
All through luncheon Eleanor sat silent, wearing the absent, harassed
expression which meant that she was deciding something--something about
which her better and her worse selves disagreed.
Just as she was leaving the lunch-table, Christy Mason rushed up to her
in great excitement.
"Now, Eleanor," she began, "don't say you can't come, for we simply won't
let you off. It's a construction car ride. Meet at the Main Street corner
at four--right after Lab., if you have it. It's positively the last ride
of the season and an awfully jolly crowd's going,--Betty and Jean and
Kate Denise and the three B's, and Katherine Kittredge and Nita Reese,--
oh, the whole sophomore push, you know. Now, say you'll come, and give me
twenty cents for the supper."
"Give me time to breathe," laughed Eleanor. "Now seriously, Christy, why
should I go off on one of those dirty, hard, bumping flat-cars, on a
freezing night in November--"
"It's moonlight," interrupted Christy, "and we must have your guitar to
help with the singing."
"We shall nickname you dig, if you don't come," declared Bob, who had
danced up in the midst of the colloquy. "Now, how will you like that--Dig
Watson?"
Eleanor laughed good-naturedly. "Don't be ironical," she said. "I'll
come. I hadn't any intention of not coming. I only wanted to know why you
will persist in lugging those horrid flat-cars into all your fun."
"Stunty," explained Christy.
"Different," added Bob.
"But since you're coming, we can argue about it to-night," concluded
Christy, decidedly. "What I want now is your twenty cents."
It was half past three when Eleanor started over to the main building to
deposit her theme in one of the tin boxes which Miss Raymond and her
assistants opened at specified hours on specified days,--not, as Mary
Brooks explained, because they wanted what was in the boxes, but because
they wished to discover what was not in them, in order that they might
make life a burden for those whose themes were late.
Just ahead of Eleanor a little freshman walked up to the box and slipped
in a stamped envelope.
"Pardon me, but this isn't a mail-box," explained Eleanor.
"Why, it says 'Collections made at 6 P.M. Tuesdays and Thursdays,'"
gasped the little freshman. Then she glanced at the heading, "'Themes of
Second Class, L to Z.' Oh, I thought of course that said United States
Mail."
"Evidently you're fortunate enough not to have elected themes. When you
do, remember that the collections are as prompt as the postman's," said
Eleanor. "Come back at six, and you can get out your letter."
But the freshman, blushing as red as her scarlet cap, had vanished down
the hall.
Then, instead of dropping in her theme and hurrying home, as she had
intended, to get into an old skirt and a heavy shirt-waist before four
o'clock, Eleanor sat down on the lowest step of the broad stairway, as if
she had decided to wait there until six o'clock and rescue the freshman's
letter herself. Five--ten--fifteen minutes, she sat there. Girl after
girl came through the hall to deposit themes, or consult the bulletin
boards. Among them were one or two of the "sophomore push," as Christy
had called them.
"Aren't you a lady of leisure, though," called Christy, dashing through
the hall at quarter to four. "I have to go ahead and see about the ice
cream. Don't you be late, Eleanor."
Eleanor looked after her wistfully; Christy was one of the girls who
always "went round." Then she shrugged her shoulders, got up, and dropped
her theme into the box.
"What's the odds, anyhow?" she muttered, as it fell with a soft little
swish on the top of the pile inside. "It's too late to write another
now." And she hurried after Christy down the hill.
The construction car ride was a great success. The night was decidedly
balmy for November, and the moon rode, full and glorious, in a cloudless
sky. If the car bottom made a hard seat, the passengers' spirits were
elastic enough to endure all the bumps and jolts with equanimity.
Hatless, though bundled in ulsters and sweaters, they laughed and sang
and shouted in the indefatigably light-hearted fashion that is
characteristic only of babies and collegians off on a frolic.
Eleanor's story of the absent-minded freshman was the hit of the evening,
and the tinkle of her guitar added the crowning touch to the festivity of
the occasion. As they rounded the last corner on the homeward stretch,
she turned to Betty Wales, her eyes shining softly and her hair blown
into distracting waves under her fluffy white tam.
"It is fun, Betty," she said. "Flat-car and all,--though why it should
be, I'm sure I don't see, and last year it wasn't--for me."
Then her face grew suddenly sombre, and she settled back in her corner,
dropping into a moody silence that lasted until the car had dumped its
merry load, and the "sophomore push" was making its way in noisy twos and
threes up the hill to the campus.
"Come over for a minute, can't you, Eleanor?" asked Betty, when they
reached the Belden House gate.
"Why, yes--no, I can't, either. I'm sorry," said Eleanor, and was
starting across the grass toward home, when Jean Eastman overtook her.
"Come over to the Westcott and warm up with coffee," said Jean.
Eleanor repeated her refusal.
"Why not?" demanded Jean with her usual directness.
"Because I want to see Miss Raymond a minute," returned Eleanor, coolly.
"Well, you can't do that to-night," said Jean. "She's entertaining
Professor Morris of New York. I don't suppose you care to break into
that, do you? She's probably having a select party of faculty stars in
for a chafing-dish supper."
"Oh, dear!" There was genuine distress in Eleanor's voice. "Then I'm
going home, Jean. You're perfectly certain that she'll be engaged? You're
sure this is the night he was coming?"
Having duly assured Eleanor that Professor Morris and Miss Raymond had
taken lunch at the Westcott House and that Miss Mills had been invited
out to dinner with them, Jean went home to inform her roommate that
Eleanor Watson was in more trouble over her English work--that she was
rushing around the campus at nine in the evening, trying to find Miss
Raymond.
Eleanor, left to herself at last, turned and went slowly back to the
Belden House.
Betty looked up in astonishment when she appeared in the door. "How'd you
happen to change your mind?" she asked.
"Fate was against me," said Eleanor shortly. "I wanted to see Miss
Raymond about a theme, but she's busy."
"Won't morning do?" asked Betty, sympathetically.
"Yes, I suppose so, only I wanted to have it off my hands."
"I don't wonder," agreed Betty. "She's none too agreeable about late
themes."
"It's not a late theme. I want to get back the one I handed in to-day. It
ought never to have gone in."
Betty stared at Eleanor for a moment in speechless amazement, then she
danced across the room and pulling Eleanor after her, tumbled back among
the couch cushions. "Oh, Eleanor, you are the funniest thing," she said.
"Last year you didn't care about anything, and now I believe you're a
worse fusser than Helen Chase Adams. The idea of worrying over a theme
that is done and copied and in on time! Come and tell Madeline Ayres.
She'll appreciate the joke, and she'll give us some of her lovely sweet
chocolate that her cousins sent her from Paris."
But Eleanor hung back. "Please don't say anything about it to Miss Ayres.
I'd really rather you didn't. It may be a joke to you, but it's a serious
matter to me, Betty."
So more people than Eleanor were surprised the next afternoon to find
that the clever story which Miss Raymond read with great gusto to her
prize theme class, and commented upon as "extraordinary work for an
undergraduate," should prove to be Eleanor Watson's.
As early in the morning as she dared Eleanor had gone over to get back
her theme "that should never have gone in," and to ask permission to try
again. But Miss Raymond had been up betimes, working over her new batch
of papers, and she met Eleanor's apologies with amused approval of
sophomores, who, contrary to the popular tradition about their cock-
sureness, were inclined to underestimate their abilities, and imagine,
like freshmen before midyears, that their work was below grade. So there
was nothing for Eleanor to do but submit gracefully and leave the theme.
It did not occur to her to caution Miss Raymond against reading it to her
class.
In spite of hard struggles and little disappointments like Helen Adams's,
it really takes very little to make a college reputation. One brilliant
recitation may turn an unassuming student into a "prod."; and on the
strength of one clever bit of writing another is given the title of
"genius." This last distinction was at once bestowed on Eleanor. She was
showered with congratulations and compliments. Her old school friends
like Lilian Day and Jean Eastman hastened to declare that they had always
known Eleanor Watson could write. Solid, dependable students like Dorothy
King and Marion Lawrence regarded her with new respect; awed little
freshmen pointed her out to one another as "that awfully pretty Miss
Watson, who is a perfect star in themes, you know"; and her own class,
who had cordially disliked her the year before, and not known what to
think of her recent friendliness, immediately prepared to make a class
heroine of her and lauded her performance to the skies.
But Eleanor would have none of all this "pleasant fuss," as Mary Brooks
called it. Suddenly and most inexplicably she reverted to her sarcastic,
ungracious manner of the year before. She either ignored the pretty
speeches that people made to her, or received them with a stare and a
haughty "I really don't know what you mean," which fairly frightened her
admirers into silence.
"I hope," said Mary Brooks to Betty, after having received a particularly
scathing retort, "that hereafter Miss Raymond can be induced not to
approve of the lady Eleanor's themes. I've heard that prosperity turns
people's heads, but I never knew it made them into bears. She's actually
more unpleasant than she was before she reformed. And the moral of that
is, don't reform," added Mary sententiously.
Betty Wales was completely mystified and bitterly disappointed by
Eleanor's strange behavior.
"Eleanor dear," she ventured timidly, "don't be so queer and--and
disagreeable about your theme. Why, you even hurt my feelings when I
spoke to you about it, and the other girls think it's awfully funny that
you shouldn't be pleased, and like to have them congratulate you. The
theme must have been good, you see. Miss Raymond knows, and she liked it
ever so much. She told the class about your rushing over to get it that
morning, and she thought it was such a good joke. Do cheer up, Eleanor.
Why, I should be so proud if I were you!"
Eleanor was silent for a moment, then she smiled suddenly, her flashing,
radiant smile. "Well, I'll try to be pleasant, Betty, if you want me to,"
she said. "There's no use crying over spilt milk. I am queer--you know
that--but I hadn't meant to hurt people's feelings. You're going to the
library, aren't you? Well, Dora Carlson's up there. Tell her, please,
that I was tired when she came in just now--that I didn't intend to be
disagreeable, and that I love her just the same. Will you?"
So when, just after Betty had left, Dorothy King came in and plunged at
once into the familiar "I want to congratulate you on that story, Miss
Watson," Eleanor smiled pleasantly and murmured, "It's nothing,--just a
stupid little tale," in conventional college fashion.
"And of course," went on Dorothy briskly, "we want it for the 'Argus.'
I'm not a literary editor myself,--just business manager,--but Frances
West is so busy that she asked me to stop in and see you on my way to a
meeting of the Editorial board. Frances is the editor-in-chief, you
know."
A dull red flush spread itself over Eleanor's pale face. "I'm sorry, Miss
King, very sorry, but--but--I can't let the 'Argus' use my story."
Dorothy stared. "We can't have it? Why--well, of course it's very good.
Were you going to try to sell it to a regular magazine?"
Eleanor shook her head. "No," she said with an odd little laugh. "No, I'm
not going to try to sell it."
Dorothy looked puzzled. "Most people are very glad to get into the
'Argus.' We don't often have to ask twice for contributions. And we want
this very, very much. Miss Raymond likes it so well and all. Can't I
persuade you to change your mind?"
"No," said Eleanor curtly.
In spite of her poise and her apparently even temper, Dorothy King was a
rather spoiled young person, used to having her own way and irritable
when other people insisted, without reason, upon having theirs. She
disliked Eleanor Watson, and now Eleanor's manner nettled her beyond
endurance. She rose suddenly.
"Oh, very well, Miss Watson," she said. "But I really don't understand
why you should raise such a tempest in a teapot over a theme. You make me
quite curious to see it, I assure you. It must be a very strange piece of
work."
Eleanor's face went white instantly. "I beg your pardon, Miss King. I
didn't mean to be either rude or disobliging or even--queer. Here is the
story, and if the 'Argus' can really use it, I shall be delighted, of
course."
On the campus Dorothy met Betty Wales. "I've got it," she cried, waving
the theme aloft in triumph. "She didn't want to give it to me at first,
and I lost my temper--she is so trying--but later she was lovely, and I
apologized, and now we're fast friends."
Betty was on her way to gym, but she stole five minutes in which to run
up and see Eleanor.
"Hurrah for you!" she cried. "I saw Dorothy and she told me the great
news. Eleanor, you'll be on the Argus board yourself, if you're not
careful."
"Would you mind not staying now, Betty?" asked Eleanor, who was lying
buried among her pillows. "I have a dreadful headache, and talking makes
it worse."